I just finished watching the three-hour film of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 staging of ‘Hamlet’, starring David Tennant in the title role along with Patrick Stewart and Oliver Ford Davies. I went into this production with skepticism, mainly to allow me to detach from my Doctor Who obsessed bias and analyse a play that I love critically and honestly. Many Shakespearites were decrying the fact that the sell-out stage production was successful only due to the hollywood cast – pulling in Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars fans alike from only three actors – and lamented that the audience was only there to see them and didn’t give a sonic-screwdriver about the play itself; which I think is absurdly narrow minded. Certainly, I myself had considered that the legions of Who fanboys, myself included, would’ve cheered at David Tennant defecating on a stick and wiggling it under our noses. But given the critical success of the play by professionals who regularly have to detach themselves from personal taste and the fact that the live production would’ve been around four-hours long, nobody would’ve paid to watch something so long that they didn’t care about just to get a distant glimpse of The Doctor; that’s why there’s a stage-door. The fanboys could, and did, flock there, indicated by reports that the RSC had to ban people from getting DT to autograph Who merchandise and limited it to Hamlet posters only.
Nevertheless, I went into watching the version broadcast last night on BBC Two with an open-mind, lest I end up stick-sniffing. I’m here to review it merely as a ill-informed viewer, I gained my interest in the play when I studied it at the beginning of the year for my English Lit A-Level, from which I developed a great love and understanding of the play; but my analytical gland grows rusty as I have been out of practice since July – depriving myself of Hamlet in anticipation of this – so excuse me if I fail to understand some directional imagery or acting technique.
Almost the entire cast deliver a fantastic performance, David Tennant as Hamlet is perfect, the diversity of his character’s different personalities and the transformations throughout are testament to Tennant as an actor and Greg Doran as a director. Patrick Stewart’s Claudius was beautifully benevolent and malevolent when necessary, though I felt that when he was consoling Hamlet in early scenes he was a bit more cold and not as warm as I would’ve expected. This detracted slightly from the marked change in Claudius along the play.
The rest of the cast are flawless, other than Mariah Gale as Ophelia, who seemed extraordinarily wooden throughout most of the play, such as when she told Polonius of Hamlet’s insane appearance as if she was struggling to remember the lines and forgot to actually act. The line “I have been so affrighted” when she continued to talk as if it was just a passing curiousity was a betrayal to the character – quite apart from Ophelia seeming a weak character under the control of the men around her; she seemed to have no character whatsoever. It wasn’t until Ophelia’s mad scenes that she showed any kind of emotion; that scene was well acted at least.
I enjoyed the soliloquys as it has the actor talking to the audience, something which is seldom seen in screen adaptations of Shakespeare, usually replaced with the actor talking to thin air or off in some direction but never at the camera, in fact they usually make a point to NOT look at the camera, which often comes off as unnatural and stiff. This method gives the production a much more stage-performance feel to it, as was intended by the Bard, and lines such as “Am I a coward? Who calls me villain?” have much more significance as Hamlet talks to the audience here and lent it the degree of comedy that Shakespeare had intended.
This production has evidently used influences from past productions – rather than hiding behind the arras or simply out of sight as would be presumed – Greg Doran, the director, has borrowed the two-way mirrors that Claudius and Polonius hide behind when observing Hamlet and Ophelia from Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 adaptation, and Polonius being shot instead of stabbed (again from behind a mirror) itself mirrors Bill Murray’s Polonius death from the 2000 Ethan Hawke version. I wasn’t priveledged, or rich, enough to go and see the production performed on stage, but if these weren’t included on stage then it may carry the slight stench of a director wanting to ease the stage to screen transition by using aspects of other versions (the Ethan Hawke version is set in the present day, as is this one). Of course, wether Doran purposely took these aspects from other films is debatable, but that’s the impression I get.
The pacing is good, but towards the end, however, things get a bit rushed – the first three or four acts are, if memory serves, complete in their content (though not word perfect as I noticed the absence of some of my favourite lines) and this has a decremental effect on the final few scenes, including the entire Act Five and the end of Act Four. If three-hours was the longest they could do the play then I feel they would’ve been better off trimming smaller bits throughout the play rather than reducing the last scenes, detracting their full effect. For example, the ongoing story of Fortinbras is included but he is never seen, instead the curtain falls (metaphorically) with Horatio weeping over Hamlet’s body rather than the intrusion of Fortinbras to look upon the princely heap – in which case they needn’t have included the story of Fortinbras at all, if it must be ommited, leaving more time for the duel and the scene before. Though I am satisfied that they kept the main point of the scene (including the Providence in the fall of a Sparrow speech) ommiting some stuff that isn’t entirely necessary, but through a method that could’ve been spread over the entire film rather than liberally applied to the few scenes.
Overall, a fantastic production that had a slightly awkward stage to screen transition, probably due to BBC limits. I lament that I hadn’t been able to see it performed as it probably would’ve been better but glad I’ve seen this, must by the DVD.
I thought it was superb. Really thrilling.
The mirror and Polonius being shot did appear in the stage production. In fact, the mirror dominated the set, extending entirely across the back and remaining in place throughout, with massive cracks after the murder.
The producer of the film kept a blog through filming which is an interesting read (although v. difficult to navigate to past posts!)
http://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/
The filming parts:
http://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/blog/index.cfm?start=1&news_id=371
Ahh the mirror was in the stage version – that’s good because it was a nice touch to the otherwise crappy Ethan Hawke ‘Hamlet’ of 2000 that’s been put into a decent production. Similarly, the scenes of Hamlet filming things was also a nice touch in the Hawke version. I don’t know if Greg Doran took these as influences or simply had a similar take on a modern Hamlet, but either way this film version is much better than the 2000 film.
David Tennant is certainly the Hamlet of the decade, but given his only prominent competition was Hawke, it’s a no brainer.